A Happy New Year to all
MIcky Redmire
Your persistance in dramatising the incident by the use of emotive language such as "entrapment", and "survivability" is now going beyond resonable limits.
You made a whole series of statements as to what should have been done, and what is wrong with the system. Each one of those I have dealt with, as indeed have others, and shown without doubt that they are neither feasible or sensible, and in many cases actually import risk.
You neatly sidestep and response to this merely now throwing in design criteria.
I'm pleased that you recognise my persistence. Regarding "entrapment" and "survivability", which alternative words would you prefer? Which part of providing additional recovery locomotives is neither feasible, sensible or imports risk? And how is my statement regarding additional recovery locomotives a sidestep? Have not Eurotunnel already provided an additional recovery locomotive?
Until the design criteria is clarified we could go round in circles to year dot, and this is where we differ, my view is that if the existing design permits extended entrapment as suffered by the Eurostar passengers before Christmas then the design is flawed. If the existing design doesn't permit extended entrapment then how did it occur? Your view is that the existing design is satisfactory and that the extended periods of passenger entrapment were and are acceptable, which begs the question: why have Eurostar apologised for the incident?
Your assertions here again are wrong because you infer that the the people who did this are incompetent. They were not and indeed their expertise in both engineering and systems design matters as well as safety far outranks that which you like to believe that you hold.
Did what? The original design or the recent recovery operation? We must be clear here. Relying on inference merely clouds the issues. How do you know what design and operational expertise I hold?
With regards to the Submarine scenario, you now ask if I have been in the engine room of a diesel ship. Well actually no, but I doubt very much that they would be sloshing around in water, nor would they be shrouded in mist.
Here is a link to a couple of photographs of a ships engineroom. Not quite the watery, humid, hades you suggest.
http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/technical-discussion/7922-ship-engine-room.html
In the context of my previous post, boat = submarine ... but you knew that didn't you? So why post links to a cargo ship? Merely confuses the issue.
You are welcome to your own views, however these are not in accord with how the Industry operates, nor on how the various Regulatory powers are happy for the Railways to operate.
The happiness of Regulatory powers? This is a new concept to me, do you mean regulatory bodies? Have the HSE been "happy" with the operation of railway industry over the years? Are you stating that the HSE have not instigated a prosecution against any part of the UK rail industry over, say, the last 20 years or so?
Risk assessment requires that risk are reasonably mitigated and it only requires hazards that are reasonably forseeable to be mitigated.
There is no requirement for system design to take into account every incident that could conceiveably happen. It is this type of attitude and approach that has put Local Authorities particularly way up on the list of incompetent organisations that provide fun to us all from time to time by seeking to mitigate every risk and in doing so to far and beyond what normal people would see as sensible.
Risk assessment also does NOT require that the risk be removed. Many situations occur where a hazard remains a high risk hazard despite mitigation. This neither makes it wrong or illegal.
My view is that it is forseeable that several sets could fail within the tunnel due to disconnection of the power supply to some or all of the traction motors. From the information available, my view has been proven to be correct. UK H&S legislation requires that the workplace is as safe as reasonably practicable for employees, sub-contractors and others, so that's everyone then. The HSE (and the courts) will seek similar levels of safety for non-workplace environments. Other than extreme rescue situations, I can't envisage workplace or public transport situations where anyone could or should be exposed to a high risk of serious injury or death, risk reduction is always achievable for places of work and transport ... so no need for any postings regarding rock climbing or horse riding
You probably need to review your understanding of CDM, you are aware that it has been updated recently, aren't you? My view is that in light of the extended entrapment periods, the design risk assessment should be reviewed. Did the recovery process work as designed or not? It's as simple as that.
An example of note is the highways contractors who place the road cones. They run across the motorway between vehicles, and every so often one of them get swiped out. HSE take no action because the risk assessment accepts that this can occur. You may wish to ask why the Police do not stop the road entirely when they are placing out the cones, thus removing all risk ??? I will leave you to draw your own conclusions on that one.
Please post a link to this risk assessment, I'd like to review it ... By the way, the HSE have taken action, you can find relevant info on the internet.
At the end of the day, train failures will occur and there are suitable procedures and resources in place to deal with them.
So why didn't these procedures and resources work for the trapped Eurostar passengers/ Or do you believe that the recovery procedures worked correctly?
The Railway Industry does not have unlimited funds, neither do its users. Indeed with regards to Eurostar operations, there is a very elastic demand (PED) against which they operate against competitors.
In a perfect world where money was of no consequence then things may be different. Until then real life intervenes and requires hard decisions to tough problems. Everything is compromise, as every engineer will tell you, all that can be decided is the degree.
It is so very easy to sit behind a keyboard and preach theory, second-guessing a once in a million event (which I anticipate this will turn out to be) it is a much harder and more exacting task to have to make the hard decisions. In my experience those who shout loudest are least able to make such decisions.
I have no doubt that there will be some issues that arise from the incident which will result in the need for modifications to existing system and procedures. I would be surprised if there are not.
One hopes that the recommendations will be taken in the cold light of day rather than under the hot light of drama, and media spin, which is inevitably aimed at making headlines and selling papers/gaining viewers. If on the way to this goal the real facts are discarded then no-one in the media gives two hoots. Headlines and revenue are what they seek, not a rational or logical reasoned explanation.
Someone posted the sort of nonesense that comes out of such incidents......Mr Nodding Donkey who claimed the whole system was "a death-trap".....and it is such stupid comments that in modern times the media treat as if carved into a stone that has been brought direct from Mount Sinai.
I can condense my reply to the above into one question:
Did the timescales and procedures for the recovery of the trapped passengers comply to the design risk assessment and the Employer's Requirements?
I have a supplementary question: is there a secondary 25kV supply to the tunnel? If so, is there a common point of protection for primary and secondary supplies?
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At least our cars would be cheaper then!!
Seriously, with regards to the 'real risk' of fainting = hitting head and swallowing tongue, what a load of drivel. I suggest the poster might want to attend some first aid training to learn how stupid that series of events would be (not least the swallowing tongue).
What do you think the recovery position is for?
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I cannot say for certain but it seems that trains 4 and 5 were permitted into the tunnel after the first train had failed (although not necessarily declared a failure at that point) but were diverted around it into the North tunnel, where they themselves failed.
The second statement baffles me. It seems to read that a recovery loco should be on the running line, then be moved out of the way into a siding so a train can enter, and then moved back onto the running line blocking the tunnel entrance until that train has cleared the tunnel. Once there is confirmation that that train is clear, the recovery loco then clears the tunnel entrance so the next train can enter.
That surely is not what you are suggesting?
No.
Recovery locomotives to be positioned in sidings immediately adjacent to the entrances to the tunnel so that the risk of recovery locos being obstructed by other sets external to but in the vicinity of the tunnel entrances is reduced.
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The provision of additional locos in not unworkable. It's unnecessary, as I have been at pains to explain. A working Eurostar can "assist" a failed set without the need to involve rescue locos.
I understand the principle of an assisting Eurostar, but if 5 sets failed in the tunnel then the principle is flawed (and from the information available I'm not convinced that the primary fault wasn't disconnection of the power supply to the tunnel)
We've covered this too. Traction motors can be isolated, either singly, in groups or all at once depending on the precise traction and the nature of the fault(s). What won't help is if snow ingress has done for the main transformers or, particularly, the battery safety cut-out.
Again, good design should ensure that only faulty circuits/components are disconnected. If the protection to a traction motor detects over current then the motor should be disconnected, but not the aux systems; I recognise that there occasions where high fault currents may cause primary protection to disconnect, but efficient reconnection of the primary protection should be possible when the relevant traction motors have been disconnected.
You're assuming that this doesn't already happen. I have no way of knowing if you're right or not. However, it is usual practice to download the OTMR (black box) on a faulty train to assist the fitters in tracing and rectifying a fault. Many new types of train already have the capability to be remotely downloaded from a control room.
However, sometimes a fault is hard to trace and there is no alternative but to rig and run a test train. It was only after Eurostar did this very thing that the precise nature of the fault became known.
If remote monitoring of moisture detection in the traction motors had occurred whilst crossing France, then this fault should have been cleared before entering the tunnel, I understand that "wrong" snow has previously afflicted Eurostar.
But an impending problem does not automatically mean a train will become a total failure. Nor does it automatically mean that the traincrew cannot identify and isolate the offending system so that the train can continue in service. At what point do the controllers decide that a service should be terminated short on what may still be a perfectly healthy train?
Design risk assessment and O&M manual should deal with timescales. My point is that remote monitoring of moisture levels could have identified the issue before the 1st train entered the tunnel
15 minutes is just not enough time to explore all the options and to attempt remedial action, even if the TMS and/or the controller can assist the traincrew in their actions.
Ah, but remote monitoring could have generated alerts prior to entering the tunnel
Oops. More assumptions. We don't know what Eurostar/Eurotunnel's figures are for this, so we're just picking numbers out of the air.
2 hours is typical for emergency lighting and fire protection in civilian, non-nuclear, non-petrochem, and "non-similar" environments; but you're right, existing design documentation should provide the answers.
Why do we need such a ridiculously high number of locos? How many times has there been more than one Eurostar failed in the tunnel at the same time? Actually, I'm struggling to think if a Eurostar has EVER failed in the tunnel in, the 15 years of operation.
Because the existing number (2) was not sufficient, I understand that Eurostar have increased the number to 3, so things are improving ...
Again, we come back to odds. Due to the level of built-in redundancy required under Channel Tunnel regulations, the chances of any train cleared to use the tunnel becoming a complete failure is far lower than with conventional mainline trains. Like it or not, having five trains totally failed on the same 31.4 mile piece of track is astonomically unlikely, as the fact that nothing even remotely approaching this has happened in 15 years of operation should tell you.
But it has now happened, therefore the original design should be reviewed. Did the system work as designed?
Why not? Where were all these failed Eurostars meant to go?
If the only way to ensure that there was enough platform space locally for all the failed sets was to send one of them forward to London, then that is what is required. If you've filled up all available local platforms and still have two trains in the tunnel then you're going to have a problem.
Can we not move some back into France? Can the passengers not leave the recovered set at the local platform and then move the set into the Kent countryside?
But all this should be dealt with by the original design and O&M manual.
Without adequate pressure in the main reservoir pipe (MRP) the brakes won't come off. It's a safety system that ensures a train running low on air stops before it runs out altogether. You have to achieve full or almost full pressure in the MRP in all vehicles of the train, so you have no option but to sit and wait.
Oh, and you really do want to wait until you've got sufficient brake air so you can stop again if you need to, sufficient air in the train suspension so that the passengers aren't bounced around too badly and sufficient door air to ensure that the doors are held shut so that no-one and nothing falls out (applies to certain older mainline stock, not Eurostar).
Can we have reduced pressure requirements for low speed recovery operations? Air pressure holds the doors closed? Does this mean that the doors can be opened by hand if the pressure drops? I assumed air to close and open but a fail-to-safe mechanical lock that can be opened in the event of an emergency. As previously, this should all be dealt with by the existing design.
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I really respect the long responses posted here,
Thank you.
but fear they're a waste of time when someone clearly wants everyone to think that people were lucky to escape with their lives that night.
Who is this someone?
Eurostar won't get off easily for this, now that Eurotunnel has made a scathing statement and there will be much more information to come, but the suggestions of how to prevent this are crazy and unworkable. I think most passengers, including those who were stuck that night, would still prefer to get those £69 return fares than be told that there's a new levy to pay for all of these modifications and extra rescue trains.
The Eurotunnel statement was a nonsense, it should have been a holding statement confirming that the issue was being investigated, modifications had been undertaken and that the system did not present undue risks to passengers. An overview of the initial investigation and subsequent modifications should have been provided in a separate report.
Why additional costs? If the original design is flawed then the designer should be be responsible for additional costs, perhaps involving the designer's PI cover. If the operation was flawed but the original design was satisfactory then enhanced communications and additional training may be all that is required. The cost for the installation of remote moisture monitoring is peanuts.
No more from me now on this thread until I've identified the design risk assessment timescales for the release of trapped passengers ... do you think Eurostar/Eurotunnel will supply me with that info ... ?
FYI